The Answer to Teenage Sex: More Mosques...

Sexually active young people is hardly a new phenomenon. Maybe the 'scope' of what we read about in the news now is that teenagers themselves are more open about talking about their experiences than they have ever been in the past. So, this might be a case of teenagers being more truthful about their extra-curricular activities for statistical purposes.

Nevertheless, the moral and religious crusaders go to great lengths to tell us that this is indicative of a failing society and that the beginning of the 'end of days'. This leads to obvious "answers" to be put forward by these individuals. The answers always involve religious and moral instruction in places of worship.

So, there is no surprise when the Mayor of West Jakarta, Burhanuddin,  reckons that the best way to combat casual sex amongst teenagers is to build more mosques and indoctrinate them on all things religious and moral.  To each their own. In my mind, the best way to address this issue is to ensure that our teenagers are indeed educated. However, that education is not one of religion or morality. The education, or lesson, is one of responsibility. If you are a teenager and you are dead keen to have sex then it will be almost impossible for adults to prevent it from happening.

Assuming that others are of a similar view, then the issue is one of ensuring that teenagers know the risks and consequences of engaging in pre-marital sexual activity. If the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI) are to be believed, then there are some 32% of Indonesian youths in the 14-18 years of age in Indonesia's larger urban centres of Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan and Yogyakarta are engaging in sexual activity. Once again, the most critical component of any response to this is to ensure that youngsters understand the risks and consequences, and then act responsibly and from a position of being forewarned and forearmed.

It seems a little naive to think that the solution to this "issue" is one of building new mosques and mandating that youths attend special sessions on pre-marital sex. I wonder whether these are non-denominational sessions or Burhanuddin is only concerned about young Muslims and their sexual appetites? One would have imagined that pre-marital sex is a community issue and not one that is exclusive to Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism.

I guess to be fair, one must give Burhanuddin a chance to show that his plan is capable of teaching these youths about safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and responsibility amongst the expected God prohibits unmarried teenagers from having sex (and if you do so then you are going straight to hell!)

There goes another RAB Experience rant and rail.
Ho hum...

One For the Record Books -- 8.7kg Baby...

A woman has given birth in a hospital in Medan, North Sumatra. Nothing to shocking or newsworthy about that, except that the baby weighed in at a massive 8.7kg (photo). This makes it the heaviest baby ever born in Indonesia (at least in recorded births). The not so little fella is also some 62cm in length.

There is little surprise that the young one was delivered via caesarean. Apparently, even doing a c-section was a challenge in terms of getting the boy out of the mother's womb.

The boy and his mother are both doing well, according to news reports.

So, how did the young fella end up so large. Apparently, the mother has diabetes, and doctors believe that diabetes in pregnant women impacts on the amount of glucose that the fetus receives during pregnancy. Simple, the boy had too much glucose and this is what caused his massive growth.

I hope all continues to go well for bother mother and son.

Football -- Indonesian Style

I wonder if it is difficult to find referees in Indonesia or people willing to be trained up for the job.

This photo shows the Manager of PSIS Semarang attacking the referee in a match against PSIS Medan held last Thursday.

Makassar Bans Donations to Street Children and Beggars

I have always wondered about the common sense of prohibiting good Samaritans from giving money to street children and other beggars that populate the traffic bottlenecks that surround Jakarta and other big cities in Indonesia. Nevertheless, common sensical or not Makassar has decided that the street children and beggars are a problem that stems from the generosity of passers-by who fork over any spare change that they might have.

In Makassar there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of street children and beggars populating the traffic lighted intersections. In 2006 there were a mere 870. This has risen to some 2,600 this year. The solution as the Mayor of Makassar, Ilham Arif Siradjuddin, sees it, is to prohibit people from giving the street children and beggars money.

The ordinance, No. 2 of 2008, provides for fines of IDR 1.5 million and terms of imprisonment of up to 3 months. Those caught begging face fines of up to IDR 5 million and 3 years imprisonment.

The stupidity of an ordinance like this is that it criminalizes poverty and lack of opportunity. It is draconian and it is backward. The Mayor and the people of Makassar should be embarrassed by such an ordinance. If a street kid had IDR 5 million then they would not need to be begging for money or food. To put someone in prison for being poor is the crime and not the circumstance of being poor.

It is time that the local government of Makassar stepped up and provided alternative opportunities for the poor. These opportunities should not only include free education for children but must also include measures that make the education truly free. There needs to be budget allocations for uniforms and books and other miscellaneous expenses.

Nevertheless, Makassar is not the first and is unlikely to be the last. The cities in Indonesia that now have local ordinances like this one include: Jakarta, Denpasar, and Medan.

The idea that donations should be provided to the Department of Social Affairs and NGOs who deal with poverty issues seems to conveniently ignore the fact that neither the Department nor the NGOs are able to cope with the problem of poverty and increasing numbers of street children and beggars.

Ordinances such as these are a backward step for sure!

Killing the Cartoonist!

Sometimes I might be at a loss for words but this is not one of those times!

Surabaya and Medan, Indonesia's second and third largest cities respectively, endured protests about the re-publication of 12 cartoons depicting the image of the Prophet Muhammad. The issue here is a prohibition against the publication of any depiction of the Prophet. Presumably this prohibition also extends to non-Muslims as protestors in both cities demanded that the cartoonist here be arrested and put to death. I would guess a trial would not be necessary because there is already an aknowledgement (admission or confession) from the cartoonist that he drew the 'offending' cartoons.

I guess we can just cut to the chase and be off with this poor fellows head!

Aside from the obvious freedom of speech and freedom of expression issues that permeate this debate there is the issue of whether the response is proportional and whether it does more harm or good to the perception of Islam being a tolerant faith.

The freedoms of speech and expression are not absolute and not without some restriction, but it does not appear on face value that these cartoons have breached this standard. Sure, they are offensive to some members of the community and by the world-wide response here this community is not just in Denmark! This has culminated in the recent arrest of some individuals plotting to bring the cartoonist to justice by murdering him for his alleged misdeeds in drawing cartoons of the Prophet.

The fact that these type of protests get off the ground and draw considerable numbers in Indonesia, which promotes itself as practicing a tolerant and moderate form of Islam, highlights and plays into the hands of those fear-mongerers suggesting that radical Islam and fundamentalists are taking over the religion debate and Indonesia is on the path to a much less tolerant demeanor towards those who are non-Muslim. This is even more of a concern when the debate is characterized as one of being either your with us or against us! Simply, the debate degenerates into one of the enemies of Islam doing whatever they can to undermine the true faith (Islam) including the publishing of cartoons.

In response at the time, and if I am not mistaken, my "favourite" Islamic hardliner, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held a competition that allowed entrants to take the proverbial 'piss' by drawing cartoons intended to offend all Christians and Jews. By all accounts entries were few and the majority of those seemed to be directed at Jews and the holocaust. This would fit though with the Zionist conspiracy beliefs of Ahmadinejad and his continued statements regarding the fiction, as he sees it, of the holocaust...

It seems that engaging in rational debate and defending the positions that we adopt has been replaced by the idea of vigilante justice where one kills first and asks questions later. It is a fine line between freely expressing offensive ideas and crossing over into the less savoury territory of vilification. But perhaps this is not a decision that should be made by the court of public opinion but rather by learned judges if the sentence demanded is death.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind!"